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Saturday, November 12, 2016

Post #3010 M

Quote of the Day

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.
Mark Twain  

Tweet of the Day
Stossel On the Failed War On Drugs

I oppose the War on Drugs, not because I think it's a good idea to abuse one's body with narcotics, but because it's bad economics and public policy. I've had to pass drug tests under several employers over the years; I've seen fellow employees stress out over whether the seeded bun they ate at lunch might result in a false positive. I once talked to a young enlisted man, griping over yet another mandatory drug test, saying the officers had it better. I ad-libbed, "Do you think they pee into wine glasses?" Exactly.



Stossel On Media's Knowing Distortion of Trump

Neither Stossel nor I supported Trump, but the evidence that the media intentionally distorted anecdotal events is compelling. Let's be clear: Trump mocking a disabled reporter was in bad taste, period, but to discuss his flailing arms as context-specific was intentionally misleading. The media's silence when Clinton talked about the photo as Trump "stalking her" (when in fact she had walked in front of Trump) is, at best, hypocritical. She was intentionally trying to recreate the infamous Lazio moment that gave her her first Senate win.



Being Raised By a Left-Fascist Mother



Is Inequality A Problem? No

Sometimes we see this in families; one of my (younger) brothers, an engineer, owned a house while I barely lived paycheck to paycheck as a teaching fellow while earning a doctorate. He and his wife have lived in nicer houses than we did growing up in a lower middle-class household (we 3 brothers shared one room), and they go on a nice vacation or cruise every year (e.g., a trip to the Holy Land recently). I've had a less stable career and have felt the down side of every economic recession, including a difficult transition from academia back to the IT profession. But when I initially started out thinking of the priesthood and later an academic career, I knew that I might live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, but I wasn't going to make a lot of money. My brother purposely sought a more lucrative career. No doubt that he has earned more assets over his career; do I resent it? No. He earned what he has. I could have made similar or other choices; I had the opportunity, the GPA to pursue anything I wanted, even medical school. I may not go out to eat as often, don't go on vacations, and have lived in more modest apartments, but I've had enough to cover the essentials and save something for a rainy day.

I don't obsess about the relative disparity of income and assets. My brother didn't steal his assets from me; he made it on his own. This is a different problem than poverty; neither of us is poor. Yes, poverty is a serious problem, but  we have seen market liberalization, not social ideology, bring more people out of poverty. We see government standing in the way of people trying to help themselves: minimum wage and/or expensive benefit mandates, occupational licensing, business permits and zoning restrictions, etc. We even see people arrested over feeding the homeless, health departments putting restrictions on donated food. "Generous" government traps people into dependency, constitutes moral hazard.



Facebook Corner

(National Review). Conservatives should focus on helping the president-elect deliver on his promise of helping average Americans prosper.
The Trump "outsider" pitch is a joke. He has been captured by the same Establishment he vowed to tame. He couldn't even get more votes than Hillary Clinton, the weakest Dem candidate in decades. I am a proud #NeverTrump er and always will be. His embrace of protectionism and xenophobia contradicts GOP policy for decades and is a form of economic suicide. True patriots will resist his anti-liberty policies and unconstitutional expansion and exercise of Presidential powers.

 Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

 Kenny Loggins, "For the First Time". One of my favorite Loggins performances. This concludes my Loggins perspective.

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